Incoming CIA head John Ratcliffe to take ‘wrecking ball’ to woke DEI, Pride initiatives at agency: report

A source familiar with Ratcliffe’s plans told the Daily Mail, "I suspect Ratcliffe is going to come in like a wrecking ball to the woke deep staters. The mission is all he cares about. No more politicized intelligence products. No more social experiments. Nothing and no one that distracts from the mission of collecting foreign intelligence and keeping Americans safe."

The Daily Mail obtained a trove of flyers from CIA employees outlining the number of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) events the agency has held over recent years.

The events include a 2024 Pride Month event featuring a keynote address from trans-identified male Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Rachel Levine, an event at the "Multicultural Inclusion Exchange" marking 20 years of the Loving v Virginia Supreme Court case, a black history month event titled "The Black Experience" spanning the whole month, and "Equity Assurance Training," among other events.

A former CIA paramilitary operations officer told the outlet, "We're the point of the spear for the Agency and we don't have time for this nonsense. And that's what it is: Nonsense."

Ratcliffe is expected to address the topic during his opening statements before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

A 20-year veteran of the CIA told the outlet, "We used to say diversity is our strength. I get that. But when diversity became the overriding emphasis it ends up like the old rule of convoys when the ships traveled at the speed of the slowest boat. And that's what we ended up with."

Cliff Sims, who was deputy director of national intelligence for strategy and communications during the first Trump term and is reportedly in the running to be deputy director of the CIA, previously described his shock at seeing a poster saying "Trans lives are human lives" in the CIA’s cafeteria the first time he walked in.

"Even in here, I thought to myself, considering how someone had taken time out of their day protecting the security of America from dangerous foreign actors in order to promote the latest iteration of identity politics," Sims wrote in a recent book The Darkness Has Not Overcome.